Friday, January 22, 2010

on reflection this probably wasthe greatest single of the decade wasn't it? Number One in Billboard for a record-breaking thirteen weeks, topped the charts in another seventeen countries -- you can't argue with stats like that.

two nights at the Bunker, Brooklyn featuring contemporary Techno/House

Bass Mutations showcase dedicated to dubstep and beyond

There will also be workshops in electronic music, film screenings, and a series of panel discussions, including one on music journalism which I'll be co-leading with Andy Battaglia--that's on Sunday February 7th at 2 PM, the location is Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building, 5 East 3rd Street (between Bowery and 2nd Ave).

Schedule and further information on the events and also the back story of Unsound, the Krakow music festival that's been going since 2003, can be found here

One particular anomaly that caught my eye was the non-appearance of Original Pirate Material in the Top 100. It's so much better than A Grand Don't Come For Free which did feature (albeit in the chart's ignominious midriff.) Then it suddenly struck me that I'd not actually put it in the ballot I'd submitted either. Ought to have been Top 5 but it just cleaned slipped my mind. I wonder if it was the same with everybody else? (Skinner's last few albums have had this incredible self-erasing man effect, haven't they? Such a self-whittling to near nothing of a Major Artist of the Decade has rarely been witnessed. Did the fifth instalment of The Streets quintology come out already or did we only get to #4? Either way I cannot remember a thing about the two albums that followed Grand, not even their titles. And Grand itself I only like/recall-at-all six things on it.)

Anyway, here's my ballot of 50 fave long-players of the decade as submitted to Stylus, but amended so that Original Pirate Material is restored albeit in a Special Category all its own. Followed by my ballot of 50 fave singles (which I took to mean literally singles, as opposed to favourite tracks, which would have been a hair-from-follicles-wrenching endeavour but might well have had "The Ballad of Bobby Pyn" at #1). Both of these were thrown together quite quickly and doubtless have many, many other ommissions besides O.P.M., and done on another day might would probably been sequenced differently. If the fancy takes me I might return to wonder about what 51>>>100 would have been, at least on the long-player front.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

INSIDE A TEMPTING WORLD OF EASY PSYCHOACTIVES

Jacob Erikson for Blissblog Times

By SIMON REYNALDO Published: January 12, 2010

Mark McGwire's admission yesterday that he used performance-enhancing drugs during the early recording career of Emeralds sent shock waves rippling through the music world. But according to industry insiders, this kind of substance abuse is an open secret on the so-called "hypnagogic pop" scene.

"It's par for the course," said James Farrero, in a phone interview from his home in San Diego. "A lot of people are getting a little, shall we say, help. And everybody knows it. The competition on this scene is so fierce and if you think the other guy is doing it, you can't let him have that advantage."

"Each decade you have a guy that comes along that sets new standards and you say O.K., now I’m going to have to take it to the next level," said Daniel Lapotin, in an interview conducted at his rehearsal space in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. "You just can't get the kind of results that everyone is looking for without some kind of boost."

Lapotin explains that the wide range of synthetic and so-called "natural" substances that some musicians resort to have a variety of uses, from inspiration to stamina (recording schedules can be punishing on the hypnagogic scene, with artists releasing as many as twenty cassette tapes a year). Then there are the so-called QCDs, which stands for "quality control diminishment" and refers to drugs that precisely target the area of the prefrontal cortex that governs aesthetic discrimination.

Readers' Comments"I personally feel he could have wentfurther to apologize for his actions and to stress how bad of an example this set for youth who idolize(d) him."John, Virginia * Read Full Comment »

Monday, January 11, 2010

Sunday, January 10, 2010

"Horchata" sensational"White Sky" very very good"Holiday" very good"California English" sensational"Taxi Cab" good"Run" very good"Cousins" very very good"Giving Up the Gun" sensational"Diplomat’s Son" supersensational"I Think Ur A Contra" sensational

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

by freaky coincidence, substantiating my indie-not-indie argument, here's Vampire Weekend's track-by-track breakdown of what went into their new album Contra. only had the one listen as yet but my initial impression is that Koenig/Batmanglij/Tomson/Baio have managed to make such riskily diverse inputs cohere remarkably well within a singular and distinctive band-voice